OVERVIEW
Before he became a world-renowned chef, writer, and television host, Anthony Bourdain was a smug nineteen-year-old aspiring writer with no real idea of what to write about. After being denied a scholarship, he leaves home in the middle of the night and follows a girl to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where, with no money and nowhere to sleep, he meets Ciro, who lets him sleep in a hammock outside his cottage and, the next morning, offers him a job that would set him on the path that would eventually define his life. Tony focuses on this formative summer, an origin story wrapped inside a 1970s coming-of-age film. What’s not to like?
BACKGROUND
Up to Tony, Matt Johnson had built his career around creative, low-budget Canadian films in which he also starred: Operation Avalanche in 2016, BlackBerry in 2023, and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie in 2026. All three were well received, gradually establishing him as one of the more reliable names in Canadian cinema. Tony is his first film financed and developed by an American studio, as well as the first feature he directs without starring in it.
Johnson accepted the project without knowing much about Anthony Bourdain and has said he had little interest in recreating the parts of his life audiences already knew. What ultimately convinced him to direct was meeting Dominic Sessa, who had reservations of his own about playing a real person and was drawn to the role precisely because this largely undocumented period gave him the freedom to create a character rather than simply imitate Bourdain.
THE REVIEW
That freedom, as it turns out, is Tony‘s greatest strength, and the result is so far removed from the usual, tired greatest-hits biopic format that someone can go in without having any idea who Bourdain was and be perfectly at home. There are no winking references to the television host he would become, nor does Dominic Sessa spend the film trying to perfect an impression. Tony treats Bourdain as what he was in 1970s Provincetown: a nineteen-year-old trying things, making mistakes, falling in love, and slowly discovering something he might have a talent for.
It makes for an unusually loose and charming origin story, one that feels much closer to a 1970s coming-of-age comedy than a traditional biopic. Johnson fills Bourdain’s summer with eccentric characters and gives Tony the same kind of arrogance that often defines the characters Johnson himself plays, but each encounter and experience Tony has, either at a party or in the kitchen, also reveals a little more of the curiosity, ambition, and talent underneath it. By the end, you feel like you truly know this young man, and you understand why he was destined to accomplish great things.
Dominic Sessa has a difficult task here and more than succeeds. Tony is clearly talented, both in the kitchen and with words, and has the drive to make things happen. He can also be a dick, something Sessa never shies away from, while gradually revealing how much of that confidence covers for a young man nobody has ever backed. The script establishes his fear of his mother from their first interaction, when she cuts his moment of happiness short, but it is Sessa who makes that relationship resonate. The way he pauses before choosing his words around her, almost measuring what he is allowed to say, makes you feel for him and root for him despite the bad choices he keeps making, while also giving Ciro’s eventual care for him much more meaning.
Played by the always reliable Antonio Banderas, Ciro ends up becoming the heart of the film. Banderas brings tremendous humanity to the character through little more than his glances, and a moment when Tony’s actions get out of hand lands particularly hard because of how convincingly Banderas sells Ciro’s disappointment. Emilia Jones is charming as Nancy, the girl Tony falls for, though hers is the most conventional role in the script. Leo Woodall, meanwhile, gives yet another charismatic performance, stealing every scene he is in and bringing an unpredictability that greatly benefits the film.
It is no surprise that Johnson nails the characters and their interactions, or that the tight script is filled with clever jokes and genuinely heartfelt moments. What is more surprising is how confidently he handles the larger canvas. Tony has the polish and scale of a studio production without sanding away Johnson’s usual creativity or personality.
Shot with warm, grainy cinematography by Paul Thomas Anderson’s recent collaborator Michael Bauman, Tony constantly surprises with dynamic camera movements, including a few memorable shots that follow cars through quick turns. Johnson and Bauman give even ordinary moments a sense of movement that keeps the film visually alive, while punctuating it with fantastic compositions, such as the moment Tony calls his family, or the shot that splits his life between the kitchen and the outside world. There are also some fun and thrilling montages, one of which will remind you of Ratatouille as Tony learns the ropes in the kitchen, while Jay McCarrol’s somber score gives the film a distinctive sound through its mixture of piano and accordion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Tony is a huge win for Matt Johnson’s career, a fantastic transition into a studio film that is heartwarming, funny, and a genuine and interesting character study. It gives his audience what they come to him for, and it holds up as a coming-of-age film for anyone who has never heard of him or of Bourdain. The excitement in the shots and editing choices lifts it well above the made-for-television flatness that this kind of feel-good story usually settles into, and puts it alongside Tuner, another 70s throwback, as one of the more dynamic and enjoyable films of 2026.